INTERLUDE

He knew what was to be done. It was a mercy, at least that's what he told himself. It wasn't really. Nice phrases like "greater good" were there to make you feel better, empty words to try and console yourself in the deafening silence of your sins.

He stood in the doorway and watched his children sleep. Just yesterday they'd been playing at war, shrieking they'd killed thousands of Daleks with their bare hands. What kind of a world was that for a child? A world of unadulterated for another race? A justified hatred, but hate nonetheless. He knew too well what hate did to a person.

No, he would rather lose them than have them grow up full of such hate. So he resolved to do it. He had failed them. Massively failed them. He was giving them a second chance, a mercy.

'That's right. A mercy. Keep telling yourself that,' a voice sneered at him in the back of his head. It had been so much easier to justify everything before, why was he suddenly afraid? Why was he suddenly seeing himself for what he really was? A coward. A traitor. A murderer.

"Phoenix," he said gently, "The war...we are losing the war." She looked at him with her big eyes.

No, it wasn't a mercy. This was just a guilty man trying to ease his conscience.

"Are we going to die? Will the Daleks kill us like they killed Orator?" She asked with such calm innocence.

"No. Because I know a way to protect you."

Protect her? Such lies. Protecting himself, more like it. Trying to remove at least a little of the crushing guilt that was going to drive him mad.

"Will it hurt?"

"No." In the TARDIS, it felt so much harder to lie.

"What is that thing?"

"It's what's going to keep you safe."

"What's it do?"

"Do you trust me?" He asked, his voice catching but the child still nodded. Children, so trusting. He had her sit down in a chair. He hesitated, and she looked back up at him. "Phoenix...do you know that I love you?"

"Yes papa."

You could still stop now. Just forget the plan, forget the war. Run away.

"I love you, I promise." He leaned over and kissed her head.

The program would rewrite every cell in her body, every memory in her mind. It would make her entirely human. And she would remember nothing of him. Nothing of who she was, where she was from, who loved her or what he had done. It took only moments before she began to scream in pain, trying to wrench herself away. He held her firm, whispering over and over again I'm sorry, I'm so sorry.

"Papa please make it stop! Stop it! Stop it now!" Her face contorted in pain, eyes closed tightly.

He couldn't let go.

This is how it had to be.

His face was wet, shirt damp. Why was she still crying? But no, she was unconscious and that he was the one sobbing. He looked down at her, she looked much the same, but when he listened carefully, only the sound of a single heart beat in her chest. He pushed the hair back from her face and picked up the watch nearby, which was now closed tight.

If he had heeded his own warning and made his hearts hard, there would have been no chance for her ever to come back, he would've taken that watch and hidden it somewhere else. But as he carried her to the second TARDIS and placed her on the floor with a pillow behind her head, he tucked the watch in her pocket. He stepped out and watched the time machine, not nearly as good as his but probably more reliable, vanish.

'I must forget,' he told himself, 'I have to forget because remembering might just kill me.'

RAJ

It had been there for weeks, and no one but Raj seemed to notice it. He had thought at first it was some new kind of modern art display or something. He'd approached it several times and touched it and the energy which hummed from within made him doubt it was just a sculpture by some strange modern artist. It was box made of frosted translucent glass of hundreds of colors. The pieces were all joined together to form a pattern that almost looked like what wind would be if it was visible. Into one side of the box was inlaid the pattern of a firebird bursting from the ashes and on the other was a wounded griffin. dripping blood from several wounds. He studied these figures, they were free of the grime which covered everything in New Delhi and so he loved to look at them.

There was beauty in his country, a lot of it. But not for him. He was untouchable, a disease only allowed to survive because he hadn't caused too much trouble. He was a mutated cell, not quite cancerous. His world was looking at the children parents had left for dead, the pimps who blinded and maimed girls so they'd make more money begging, dogs fighting among the starving for a scrap of bread, lepers rotting in train stations. Beauty was few and far between in Raj's world so he went to this box every day.

About a month after the appearance of the box, Raj noticed the girl. She was so obviously out of place he wondered why more people weren't looking at her. Her hair was red, her clothes distinctly British, and she was all alone sitting at the base of the box, looking glum. Occasionally she'd scuff her white shoes on the ground in front of her but mostly she looked out not really seeing anything. Two days after seeing her consistently there, he had the courage to go up to her. Usually he approached strangers, especially Westerners, to get money. But this little girl clearly didn't have any and he didn't really care about it so much today.

"Hello? Little girl?" he asked in his heavily accented English. She didn't look at him, he wasn't even sure she saw him. "Hello?" he waved a hand in front of her eyes. She lifted her head and turned toward him.

"Who are you?"

He was surprised to hear her speak Hindustani so well. "I am no one. Who are you?"

"No one." She replied. They sat in silence for a minute.

"Do you know what the box is?" Raj asked.

"Oh, she's my TARDIS."

"Yours?"

"Yes, mine. But she's resting right now," Phoenix sighed, sadly.

"You are alone here?"

"Yes."

"How did you get here?"

"I flew," she scuffed her shoe on the ground.

"Where from?"

"Gallifrey." Raj didn't know much about geography so he assumed it was a country or a city he just hadn't heard of. They sat in silence until she looked over at him, really seeing him for the first time. "What happened to your leg?"

"What, this one?" Raj awkwardly extended his left leg. It was mangled, like it had been stuck through a meat grinder but not completely and was what everyone saw when they looked at him though they hardly ever said anything about it. Once in a while someone would shout "cripple" but no one ever asked how he'd hurt it.

"No, I mean that one," she pointed to his right leg where he had the clear tattoo of a lotus on his ankle.

"Oh. That's so they can keep track of me."

"Who?"

"Them. The men who did this," he gestured to his left leg.

"Someone did that to you?" She said, so alarmed she forgot to look glum for a minute.

"Yes. When I was six...the men, they take a rock and break my leg. Then they bind it backwards so it will not heal right."

"Did they do it to keep you safe?"

"What? No, they do it so I make more money begging for them."

"Do you still beg for them?"

"Yes. I do. They feed me a little when I bring a lot. But I am not a cute kid anymore. So I do not make so much money." He rubbed his leg then tucked it back under him, "This tattoo, it so they know who I belong to." The girl looked at him for a moment, then said,

"I am the Phoenix."

"Oh. I am Raj."

"I'm very long ways away from home, and I don't think I can ever go back and I'm lonely," she added, hiding halfway behind her hair.

"I can see you're a long way from home."

"Why?" she suddenly looked alarmed, "I look human!"

"Yes...but I mean…" he gestured to her, "You not from around here."

"Oh you mean my hair. Yes, it's a little different…" Raj's hand shot out and grabbed a lock of it. He'd clearly been wanting to do this since he'd sat down. Phoenix hardly noticed, turned to look at him and said, "I like you, Raj. Would you like to come inside my TARDIS?"